Before the industrial era, what we think of as "retirement" was a state primarily reserved for the upper class. The landed gentry and nobility did not work, and in fact it was considered unseemly for them to do so. That doesn't mean that the upper classes just sat around doing nothing all day, but that they didn't work in a field or in commerce. They could do things like practice law, but weren't supposed to be paid for it (hence the old tradition of a pocket in the back of barrister's robes so money could be slipped in without them having to put their hand out).AlwaysLearningMore wrote: ↑Sun Feb 07, 2021 2:06 pm Do we, as a society, need to start adjusting our idea of what retirement looks like?
"I think that’s right. But if you have any kind of historical context, where the hell did the idea of retirement come from? That’s a very modern idea. It used to be you contributed as long as you could. When 90 percent of the population was working in agriculture, everybody worked. I think retirement is going to fade. We’re going to think of it as a period of time when there was a need to get elderly people to retire so that younger people could take their place in the industrial society. And as the economy changed, and as the demographics changed and there was a need for elderly people to stay productive, retirement disappeared." Zvi Bodie, BU Today July 7, 2020
I think what the FIRE crowd are looking for is a state akin to how the gentry used to live. They had the leeway to write novels, or take a few legal cases, or race horses, or travel, or play in politics, or whatever pursuit interested them without having to worry about their sustenance. I doubt the fact that one CAN work in a 9-5 office job your entire life means that it will become commonplace. Most people would prefer to the freedom to do otherwise if they have the means.
Outside of that, a huge portion of the population still works in jobs that are physically demanding, and don't really have the option of working their entire lives. Few octogenarians are going to have the strength and stamina to work construction.